Canning season is upon us! At our house, we’ve already made apricot jam and pickled eggs. What about you? Have you started canning anything? Since we should all can with care, I thought we’d post some tips that the USDA gives about canned food.

Once the grill is hot, the next step is to set the grill up for direct or indirect grilling. This is a critical decision because it will mean the difference between perfectly cooked and perfectly disappointed. Let Weber explain:

For all of the chocolate buyers out there, we want to issue you this fair warning: Chocolate, taffy and gummy candy will melt in hot weather. However, at Gygi.com, we want your products to arrive in their best condition. We’d love it if everyone could come and visit us in person and take their products safely home. But unfortunately this can’t happen. So we’ve come up with a few warm weather shipping guidelines to follow.

If the items you order, being shipped from us to you, will be in weather above 70 degrees, we suggest that you follow the warm weather shipping tips below.

Tips for Warm Weather Shipping:

1. If at all possible, ship to a business address. Businesses usually receive packages earlier in the morning and someone is always onsite to receive the package. This way your product isn’t exposed to the hot sun all day.

2. If you cannot ship to a business address, then plan on being home the day your package is scheduled to arrive. If you aren’t there to receive it, the package will be left on the porch in the sun or put back onto the hot UPS truck.

3. If you cannot be home, please leave a note instructing that the package be left at a neighbor’s house or in the shade.

4. After receiving your package, let it rest at room temperature in order to provide melted items time to set before opening.

5. We recommend if you are ordering a lot of different items to split the order in two. Select the 2-Day shipping option for products prone to melting. Ship the rest of your order using regular UPS Ground shipping.

6. Purchase a cold pack to add to the box of products that may melt. Cold packs cost an extra $4.99, but may be just what your product needs to stay in tact. Cold packs only stay cold for about 24 hours and will not be frozen by the time you receive your package.

*Due to potential melting of chocolate, taffy and gummy products during warmer months of shipping, these products will be shipped at the buyer’s risk. Gygi.com will not be held responsible for any melting of these products that may occur during shipping. We do recommend following the shipping tips above to help minimize melting.

Don’t panic, should melting occur with your chocolate in shipping, it will not ruin your chocolate. Most chocolate products can be re-melted and used again without any issues. Please contact us at Gygi.com with any questions prior to purchasing your chocolate products.

If you have any questions about weather, check out the national forecast on The Weather Channel.

Brussels Sprouts get a bad rap. Even though they are super nutritious, for some reason people flee from them. I think it must be the unknown that keep some of us from them. At least, that’s why I had never tried them, until last night. Yep, last night I cooked them up for dinner, and to my surprise, they were pretty delicious.